With $73M multi-family acquisition, Stone Street doubles portfolio

Stone Street Properties, a real estate investment firm founded last year by Jeffrey Kaye and Robert Morgenstern, has closed on a deal for a 16-building Manhattan and Brooklyn portfolio composed of 300 residential units, the founders told The Real Deal today.

The deal for the portfolio, made up of 14 Manhattan buildings and two properties in Brooklyn, closed yesterday for $73 million. Paul Smadbeck of Massey Knakal Realty Services brokered the deal on behalf of the seller. Stone Street did not use a broker.

HIG Realty Partners, a Florida-based investment firm, is Stone Street’s equity partner is the deal. Stone Street’s principals declined to comment on the structure of their partnership. The transaction is one of HIG’s first in New York.

“There was a tremendous amount of competition until we signed a hard contract deposit of $7.3 million,” Kaye said. “Massey Knakal was about to take it out to the market. We preempted the market by signing the check within days.”

Although the founders declined to comment on the identity of the seller, they said he was a “long-tem family owner and operator,” who was “retiring by selling this portfolio.” Public records reveal the seller as longtime Manhattan landlord Robert Koppelman. Koppelman has owned the majority of the portfolio’s buildings since the 1990s, records show.

With this acquisition, Stone Street has almost doubled its holdings. The firm now owns approximately 750 units across 28 buildings citywide, its founders said. Last year, Stone Street acquired a portfolio of five rental buildings in the East Village and on the Upper East Side from Icon Realty Management. That deal was valued at $90 million.